The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-05

tions throughout the country. there are
no less than twenty in New street of this
besides others in various parts
of the city. There was formerly
a bucket shop exclusively for women, known
as the Three Graces, and there is now said
to be one of the same sort on Union Square,
where foolish women with gambling pro-
pensities throw their pin money into the
ravenous NAV of Speculation. Hundreds
of women buy pool tickets on the horse
races at Coney Island, Jerome Park, Long
Branch and Saratoga in the summer, and
the same class would be likely to patronize
a bucket shop in the winter. One big bucket
shop on lower Broadway, known as the
"Big Four" employs fifty clerks and
twenty-five telegraph operators and has
branch offices i'll Boston ana elsewhere in
New England, Buffalo and other points over
a wide stretch of territory east of the Mis-
Sissippi, and is said to do an enormous busI-
ness Another establishment of Wall street
has private wires to numerous points in the
Eastern States, and as far North as Mon
treal, employing twenty clerks and twenty
five telegraph operators, keeping accounts
with several members of the Stock EX
change, while the proprietors are allowed to
be members of the Consolidated Exchange.
The concern is said to do large business.
The proprietors, Doran 81 Wright, deny
that they keep bucket shop but the Mer-
camille Agency of r. G. Dun q Co., of which
Erastus Wiman, the well-known tinancier,
is the head, says that S. G. Doran,
the President" and one of the direc-
tors of this company" is reported to
be "a man of considerable ability, but
the business is of the kind known as bucket
shop business, though it might claim to be
something higher than that For this rea
son the concern is not in good repute in reg
ular business circles, and conservative houses
would, as a rule be disinclined TO take risks
ON them. Doran is believed to be worth
property, yet it is doubted if any tangible
means Of his could be discovered to satisfy a
claim" That is the popularity OF some of
the big bucket shops. There is not one to
to sue. One concern hides itself under a
title of the Public Grain and Stock Ex-
CHANGE and is known simply as the big
Four" perversion of the title usually
given to certain big operators in the Chi
cago Board of Trade.
The bucket shop is usually very profitable.
It practically has the game in its own
hands. A bucket shop can clay down" at
any time. A faro bank can be broken by
an extraordinary run of luck, but bucket
shop never. Every customers profits are
limited, and there are a hundred tricks
whereby such a concern can .aswindle
them. As an instance of the profitable
nature, Todd, whose Broad street establish
ment was recently raided by the police, is
reputed to be worth S1,0O0,0OO. He owns
the Hotel Vendome. on the corner of Broad
way and FortY-first street, and another
ia ~ther down that great thoroughfare. A
former bucket shopper is largely interested
in the Hotel st. George, on Brooklyn
Heights, if he is not the sole proprietor
These structures were costly, and only men
of wealth could have erected them. Plenty
of other bucket shoppers have grown
wealthy.
A few of the tricks of the average bucket
shop are worthy of mention. As already
stated, bucket shop can ''lay down." that
is, suspend at any time, and there is no
redress The most ambitious swindler
could hardly wish more than this. The
profits are limited to about per cent, that
is, no speculator is allowed to win more than
that on deal, and to win that he has over
come charge of one-quarter of per cent.
in commissions This device naturally
tends not only to increase the commissions
but to reduce any possible chances of loss
by fluctuations. Quotations are falsified or
deliberately suppressed, which is the same
thing. In the interior the bucket shopper
often swindles his customers by saying that
the ''wires are down" and that
orders cannot be executed. This pre-
vents the speculator from securing
profit or it completely deceives
him as to the actual quotations, which he
learns soon enough, however, when his
slender margin is wiped out The bucket
shopper likes to get an out-of-town business,
where he has practically control of the
''tickers," and by getting his customers as
far as possible into one stock or option, he
can, by falsifying the quotations, which is
often done to the extent of one-half per
cent, or more, he can fleece them like a
piekpocket at funeral. If city customer
posted on the market by outside tickers,
wishes to buy on a rising market, he usually
finds the bucket shopper exceedingly busy
or smitten with sudden deafness, from which
he only RECEIVERS after the market has gone
up another point or two, and the
speculator often has the same experience
when he wishes to sell short on a declining
market or to save loss The bucket shop
only wants small margins, because they are
more easily wiped out. They run all the
way from S. to 81 900 usually, representing
only per cent. on the stock or grain traded
in. Not a few bucket shoppers are repre-
sented on the Stock Exchange or the
Chicago Board of Trade, and often they
manipulate the quotations there either by
wash" or actual transactions, selling the
market up or down if the majority Of their
customers are long or ''short, as the case
may be, and it often pays them tc
make UneSe CranSacUlOllS dG loss IOi
the sake of the margins to be wiped out A
former Broad street establishment is said tc
have raked in $4,000 in one day by such
tricks, and larger shops" with wider
field for operations are believed to have
stolen from 100000 to 100000 in a single
day by similar tactics. The stock or grain
broker, who executes the order of establish
ments known to be managed en- a system OF
barefaced swindling, is clearly unworthy tc
be member of the Stock Exchange, tht
Consolidated, the Produce Exchange or the
| Chicago Board of Trade, and some of the
sc-called respectable stock and grain houses
are partly responsible for wealth and power
of the bucket shops.